So, some backstory:
Problem: Gamers online often debate what game developers were thinking when they made certain choices for games they love. They often do this with absolutely no insight into the thought processes of those developers.
Solution: A gamer who can translate Japanese made a website called Shmuplations.com where he finds old interviews with the actual developers themselves, posting their translated words so gamers can understand the actual thought processes.

A few days ago, the site posted an interview from the November 2002 issue of Nintendo Dream, between Shigehisa Nakaue and Takaya Imamura, discussing things about the Star Fox series development and Star Fox Adventures specifically. Shigehisa Nakaue co-developed the Star Fox Adventures Prequel Manga, and would later join Nintendo himself. Takaya Imamura, for those who don't remember, just retired from Nintendo in January, but over his career he was known for character design of the Star Fox characters and helping manage those games. The entire article is worth a read.

Read the Interview Now!

In the interview, a discussion was had about Krystal. Among the points, the following Krystal and Adventures facts came to light:

• Fox ultimately used Krystal's staff instead of a gun, sword, or whip because it was a more blunt weapon and would get around content problems related to cutting/slashing.
• Imamura's favorite character in Star Fox Adventures is Krystal.
• He personally did a lot of Krystal sketches and pushed for her to remain in the game as it was changed from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures. (It was already known that Krystal was possibly going to be cut during the transition.)
• Some of those sketches took influence from a risque vampire character named Vampirella, from a comic series of the same name.
• Both Imamura and Miyamoto both thought Krystal should have more sex appeal.
• Miyamoto always saw Star Fox as a serious sci-fi story, not a campy or humorous one. Part of making Krystal more sexy had to do with this desire for the series. Mature elements without going too far.
• Katt Monroe might have been a previous attempt at this, but Imamura thinks that Krystal handles the role better.
• Krystal is the first female Rare character that Shigehisa Nakaue really liked.
• Imamura considers Krystal the heroine of Star Fox Adventures.
• Imamura tried to make Krystal's design stand out to Japanese people specifically, while also making her look like she belonged with the rest of the Star Fox characters.
• Nintendo was already working with Namco on the next Star Fox game, so there's some discussion about that, as well as interest in making another Star Fox Adventures-style game.

AustinMcConnell, a YouTuber who makes weird and wonderful videos about just about everything (but mostly about storytelling and movie-making) posted a video today. In it, Austin goes over the simple facts about how copyright works, or rather, doesn't. And how basically all fanart is illegal.

In the process, he interviews several people, including Matthew Gafford, aka Fredryk Phox, aka, the guy who makes the fan animation series "A Fox In Space." These animations feature a more deadpan parody style one might find in an Adult Swim type show, with Matthew doing most of the voice acting and animation himself. I personally like these shorts, though I can't post about them here much due to their style of humor being just a tad too much for my intended audience.

Give it a watch. It's an interesting subject, and an interesting perspective on copyright and the specific nature of an ongoing problem that someway, somehow, needs to be solved. I vote for some kind of iTunes Store-like simplification for fans to pay small amounts to gain a simplified license to use a character or IP in their fanart, fanfiction, or whatever.

PS - Subscribe to AustinMcConnell while you're at it. He has a good channel. I was already subscribed to him, which is how I discovered this video so quickly.

It's been a little while since Esphirian dropped his first experimental trailer for a reimagining of Star Fox Adventures in Unreal Engine. 2020 really hit him hard, but he was finally able to put out a new trailer. This one was done is a more epic, cinematic style, with voice acting and a wide variety of play-styles. We get to see more enemies, bosses, cutscenes, voice acting, racing, Arwing dogfighting, new characters, and more.

This is clearly an open-world game, with Fox and Krystal working together in many scenes, sometimes Krystal is player-controlled, sometimes it's Fox. There are a lot of interesting ideas here, as well as much more polish than the first trailer. During the first announcement, it was hinted this was a private fangame and wouldn't be released. However, Esphirian mentioned in the description that he plans to be more open with the development as time goes on, so hopefully that indicates that he'll be willing to release it too. Fingers crossed.

Surprising news this morning. The archival group Forest of Illusion announced that they had obtained a copy of Dinosaur Planet. The build of the game is clearly in a much different state than the E3 demo version. This one has Fox McCloud partially implemented, but other characters still call him Sabre and Krystal is still playable for large parts of the game. The build file lists a creation date of December 1st, 2000.

They had obtained a disc from a private game collector in Sweden which contained the build of the game.

The build is playable. Streamers are already starting to play through the build on their channels. It has glitches and issues, and many hackers will no-doubt work on it to fix and complete the game as they have time to look at it.

All this news caused Dinosaur Planet to briefly trend on Twitter.

Obviously, this is huge news. Dedicated fans and archivists have been waiting for something like this to happen. People are excited. Unfortunately, I must throw a little bit of cold water on this and say that these files aren't authorized and possibly stolen. Nintendo, Rare, or maybe even Microsoft might come down hard on people distributing or streaming the game. Please exercise caution. It is for this reason that I can't even link to the original post because it contains a download link.

For now, though, I'm still in shock that something like this happened after all these years. This is kinda like the Playable Krystal Mod for Star Fox Adventures that was released just a few months ago. So much interesting stuff is happening now, of all times.

Artist Jonas created this epic Krystal fanart straight out of the 80's. Think He-Man, muscled up warriors on alien worlds with giant swords. Now add Krystal. Like I said, epic. The Arwings in the background is a nice touch.

The completed artwork can be viewed on Twitter or in his FurAffinity gallery.

It's been quite a while, but here it is! The next Nintendo Direct. This one is certain to have Smash Bros info, and that probably means a new character. We always cross our fingers that the beloved blue vixen will make her debut, of course, but I'm also excited to see what Nintendo has up its sleeves for the new year.

You can watch the livestream on YouTube and other places at 2PM Pacific (5PM Eastern) on Wednesday, February 17th, 2020.

Unlike the previous post, this is an animation you can actually watch!

Krystal gets a message from Kat Monroe about a new Soap Opera special about to be broadcast. She has to get to her room quickly to catch it. Unfortunately, she's gonna have a hard time getting there.

In a commissioned animation, TheIronGauntlet does his visual gags and puns, as we've seen in previous animations. Krystal is voice acted in this one. We get to see her Staff again, and Fox McCloud gets involved too. Fun little animation.

As reported by pretty much everyone...

TV personality Adam Conover was interviewed on a political podcast and he brought up a tidbit from his past. Around 2014, he was working at CollegeHumor and there was a project in collaboration with Nintendo to create a Star Fox claymation/puppet type show. Apparently it was very similar to their existing Fantastic Mr. Starfox animation, which you can watch below.

As the story goes, a live action Legend of Zelda show was being produced by Netflix at the same time via a program for Nintendo to slowly allow their IP to be used in outside projects like TV shows. Unfortunately (or fortunately), someone at Netflix leaked information about the show, and Nintendo shut down the entire program, canceling this Star Fox show as well.

You can listen to the discussion here. Language warning.

Personally, I'm not broken up about it. I REALLY didn't like the Fantastic Mr. Starfox animation they had already done, and the idea that they would take something as painful to watch as that trailer and extend it out into a full-length show is probably going to haunt my nightmares for the next few days. It's just... not funny, which is pretty bad when your supposedly producing a comedy.

On the other hand, there's a new Star Fox animation (with Krystal!) that actually did release today! See the next post...

Small post today, but I couldn't let the day go by without mentioning it. Wow! It's been a long time!

Due to illness and travel over the holidays, I'm not yet in a position to record a year-in-review podcast like I usually do. I will probably do that early next week. Sorry for all the delays! We're still active and chatting every day on Discord. I have a lot of news to cover and will as soon as I can.

Until then, let me know in the comments what you'd like to see more (or less) of in the coming year.

Select New Game: Hard Mode

Sorry I was a little late. Those of you on the Discord server know that I have been sick as a dog all week, spending most of my days asleep. Don't worry, it seems to be a mild flu that caused a sinus infection, not COVID. And I'm already feeling much better.

I have a lot to post now, a HUGE backlog. Thank you all for your patience. As usual, I want to resolve this year to post here more and get my backlog smaller. I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years, and I hope you have interesting plans of your own for 2021.

One of my biggest surprises this Christmas was when I received a Christmas card in the mail. It was from a close friend of mine in real life who I won't name to respect her privacy (unless she's cool with it). Anyway, she told me she would be sending me a Christmas card, but I never expected what was contained within. Check this out!

I didn't even know she was an artist! She told me since then that she only draws very rarely. What a sweet gift, and a wonderful drawing I just had to share.